


A Written Warning

by acommontater



Category: Glee, Glee: ATOG
Genre: AU, atog fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-10
Updated: 2015-07-10
Packaged: 2018-04-08 13:41:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4307241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acommontater/pseuds/acommontater
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been five years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Written Warning

**Author's Note:**

> An au of an au of a fictional tv series ~so meta~. Fanfiction of the fanfiction All The Other Ghosts by rainjoyswriting, written in the style of a 'fanghost'.
> 
> Trigger warnings for the original fic should be taken into consideration, glancingly. (Other warnings are in the end notes.)
> 
> Title from Ghosts by Laura Marling.

Phalanx goes to the little coffee shop where they used to go. He sits at the tiny table in the corner with his drink, shoulders hunched in and around himself.

It’s been five years.

He looks around furtively before waving a hand and summoning a tiny cloud of shields over the table. They rearrange themselves into a small angular green rose in his cupped hand.

“I’ve been practicing.” He whispers to the empty chair across the table. “I’ve gotten really good.”

__________________________________

Ghost takes him to the coffee-shop for the first time after they’ve been patrolling all night and need to stay awake for the day. Ghost doesn’t tell him anything about himself that first week, not really.

__________________________________

“Sir? Are you alright?” A concerned looking woman approached his table. Phalanx looks up at her, the small shield rose vanishing.

“I’m fine. Just… a bad day.”

“Alright.” The woman gives him a small smile, but he can’t muster up the energy to smile back.

__________________________________

He learns about The Ghost little by little, week by week. He learns that the Ghost doesn’t like to talk about his past, but he does like to talk about the future. He hates hospitals, but not doctors or people in the medical profession. He likes his coffee with cream but not sugar. When he was nineteen he left his small sleepy town behind and drove to New York to disappear. He prefers muffins to biscotti. He takes meticulous care of his hair.

__________________________________

Phalanx finally brings himself to leave the coffee shop and his feet carry him to the park.

There are not as many happy memories here.

__________________________________

They had a picnic on one of the bright sunny days of spring when the ground was miraculously dry. He feeds Phalanx sweet fruit and Phalanx trails gentle fingers over his face as though he might break if he pressed to hard. 

__________________________________

Phalanx sits on a bench and stares at the fountain- closed and filled with left over rotten leaves from the fall.

__________________________________

It had been a close call the day before. Phalanx finds himself staying close to Ghost’s side, clutching his hand and pressing along his side as they walk. Some horrible overhanging feeling of terror makes him jumpy- he can’t decide if it’s remnants of the night before or something else. The Ghost stops and pulls them down onto a bench next to the fountain.

“Hey, what’s wrong?”

Phalanx just tucks himself closer into his side, shaking his head.

“It’s silly. I think I still jumpy from last night.”

“You’re not silly. What’s bothering you?”

“It’s just, I almost lost you last night, and I can’t shake this horrible feeling that I’m losing you. I dunno.” His voice is whisper soft and crackling.

He feels the Ghost’s breath catch in his chest. He lifts his head, concerned.

“Love?”

Ghost’s eyes are watery, as though he’s holding back tears.

“Hey,” Phalanx sits up and catches the Ghost’s hands in his own. “it’s okay, I’m just, worried I guess.”

The Ghost takes a deep breath.

“But you’re right.”

Every vein in his body, frozen and unmoving.

He can see Ghost’s lips moving, hear what he’s saying, but the words clatter uselessly around his frozen brain. A jumble of words- unresponsive to treatment, time, the doctors said, dying. Dying. 

He barely makes it to the trashcan before throwing up.

__________________________________

 

Phalanx leans back on the bench and stares up at the strip of blue sky, framed by skyscrapers.

__________________________________

 

He’s useless. What good are all the shields in the world if you can’t defend the love of your life from some creeping angry death that kills cell by cell and attacks from the inside? What good is he?

He understands why the Ghost ran so far all those years ago, now. Why he has no fear of dying everyday of his life.

__________________________________

After…. After everything, he’d gone back out. He couldn’t just abandon the city. He wouldn’t do that. The Ghost wouldn’t have done that if he’d been the one who…. Nearly six months after, he rescues a star-struck fangirl, who is grateful and awestruck in one. She asks timidly, as he drops her off at her apartment building, if he knew where the Ghost had gone. He freezes for a moment before answering. They should know.

“He’s… gone.” The girl’s face is shocked.

“Is he… coming back?”

“No, he.” Voice caught in his throat. “He’s not. I’m sorry.”

He flees as fast as he can, tears clouding his vision.

__________________________________

 

He hadn’t touched his blog in over four years.

__________________________________

 

Two weeks before, Ghost begs to be taken home. He’d been in the hospital for nearly a week, and was miserable. Phalanx took him home. He carried him to their little home and let him rest on the sofa. Phalanx is perturbed by the weightlessness of his body- it’s as though the Ghost is fading away for good.

But he can’t let himself think like that.

The week before, the Ghost flickers in and out of view and tangibility. Phalanx becomes very good at anticipating and forming a shield under him to try and prevent him from sliding through the bed or the floor.

The night before, he carries the Ghost to bed with him and they curl together under the blankets. The Ghost breathes low and shallow and Phalanx wraps his arms around his now-frail body tightly as he dares. He buries his face in the crook of the Ghost’s neck and feels a shaky hand stroke through his hair. The Ghost flickers out of sight for a moment, only a warm weight in his arms, before reappearing.

“Please don’t let go.” The Ghost whispers. “Not tonight.”

“Not ever.” Phalanx promises.

__________________________________

 

A stray spinning shield sends the dead leaves into a tizzy.

__________________________________

 

He wakes up the next morning with the Ghost still breathing gently in his arms. He presses a kiss to his forehead, and then gets up to make them breakfast.

When he returns with the tray, the Ghost is awake and watching him gently as he renters the room.

“Hey.” He says softly. “I made your favorite.”

The Ghost reaches out to catch his hand, his fingers fading through Phalanx’s wrist. Phalanx focuses on cutting up the breakfast. The Ghost says his name quietly, and then when he doesn’t turn, more firmly.

When Phalanx finally turn to him, there is a terrible, sad smile on his face.

“No.” Phalanx whispers, moving to kneel next to the bed, clutching at his hand. “No, please.”

The Ghost reaches out and traces his face. Phalanx can’t stop the tears from falling.

“I’m so sorry, love.” The Ghost whispers. “I wish…”

“I know.” Phalanx presses a kiss to his palm. “I know.”

“I love you.” The Ghost tells him, his eyes finally welling up. “I haven’t told you that nearly enough, you know.”

“I love you too. So much. And it’s okay, if you… if you need to go.”

The Ghost smiles weakly at him, tears still falling, and flickering wildly in and out of view.

“I’ll wait for you.” He draws a harsh breath. “Just, promise that you won’t give up, okay? Don’t…”

“I promise.” Phalanx moves closer to the bed, holding the Ghost’s hand between his own. “I promise. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

__________________________________

 

Phalanx stands and leaves the park.

__________________________________

 

The Ghost smiles at him and his hand drops limply to the bed. His eyes fade and then he’s gone. There is no sign left that the Ghost was ever more than a city legend.

Phalanx cries until he cannot over the empty bed.

__________________________________

 

There’s no body at the Ghost’s funeral. It’s barely even a funeral, honestly. It’s just Phalanx, alone, with a letter that he wrote and a jar of the ashes of a uniform no longer to be worn. He lets the wind take the letter out into the ocean. Maybe the Ghost will be able to find it there, somewhere in the mysterious blue depths.

__________________________________

 

He still has the cloak. It hangs in his closet, the material soft and the empty outline a reminder of what he has lost, and what he must do.

Phalanx was never one to break promises.

**Author's Note:**

> TW: cancer, character death.
> 
> /Apparently/ nothing is to angsty for me that I can help myself from making it /worse/.


End file.
